Video games experience an ever-increasing interest by society since their inception
on the 70’s. This form of computer entertainment may let the player have a
great time with family and friends, or it may as well provide immersion into a story
full of details and emotional content.
Prior to the end user playing a video game, a huge effort is performed in lots
of disciplines: screenwriting, scenery design, graphical design, programming, optimization
or marketing are but a few examples. This work is done by game studios,
where teams of professionals from different backgrounds join forces in the inception
of the video game.
From the perspective of Human-Computer Interaction, which studies how people
interact with computers to complete tasks, a game developer can be regarded as
a user whose task is to create the logic of a video game using a computer. One
of the main foundations of HCI. is that an in-depth understanding of the user’s
needs and preferences is vital for creating a usable piece of technology. This point
is important as a single piece of technology (in this case, the set of tools used by
a game developer) may – and should have been designed to – be used on the same
team by users with different knowledge, abilities and capabilities. Embracing this
diversity of users functional capabilities is the core foundation of accessibility, which
is tightly related to and studied from the discipline of HCI.
The driving force behind this research is a question that came after considering
game developers: Could someone develop a video game being fully or partially blind?
Would it be possible for these users to be part of a game development team? What
should be taken into account to cover their particular needs and preferences so that
they could perform this task being comfortable and productive?
The goal of this work is to propose a possible solution that can assure inclusion
of fully or partially blind users in the context of computer game development. To
do this, a Used Centered Design methodology has been followed. This approach is
ideal in this case as it starts including people you’re designing for and ends with new
solutions that are tailor made to suit their needs. First, previously designed
solutions for this problem and related works have been analyzed. Secondly, an
exploratory study has been performed to know how should the target user be able
to interact with a computer when developing games, and design insights are drawn
from both the state of the art analysis and the study results. Next, a solution has
been proposed based on the design insights, and a prototype has been implemented.
The solution has been evaluated with accessibility guidelines. It has been finally
concluded that the proposed solution is accessible for visually impaired users.Ingeniería Informátic
